


A Hero's Greatest Fear

by Empress_Of_Edenia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Absent mother, Day 3: Kids/Grown Ups, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, I wanna say Keith is at least seven or younger in this fic, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keith Family Week 2018, Mild Angst, Mostly Fluff, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 00:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16377893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empress_Of_Edenia/pseuds/Empress_Of_Edenia
Summary: When Keith Delmar-Ashland was just a kid, one of his favorite things to do was sit on the porch of his family's old house. More often than not, he'd do this with his dad. A lot of their time spent gazing out into the southwestern sunset was just that. But other times, things got a little more personal.





	A Hero's Greatest Fear

“Can I ask you something, daddy?” Keith patiently waited for his permission.

Hogan drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Keith noticed that he always did that when he wanted to do anything and everything but give his son a straight answer. There was nothing Keith could do about it, though. His daddy was the toughest man in all of the southwest. He only gave in when he felt like it, no ifs, ands or buts.

“That depends,” Hogan replied. “Is it about your mama again?”

Keith wouldn’t lie to his face. “Yeah.”

There was a silence that followed Keith’s question that surged a wave of anxiety through him. It made him keep his gaze firmly on his toy plane and try not to fidget so much. He continued to twist it in the air over his feet while waiting on his daddy to say something.

“Alright,” Hogan said as he finally caved. He leaned a little ways on his thighs. “What do you wanna know today?”

“What’s she like?” Keith probably should’ve asked for something more specific. Specific questions meant more direct answers, and not something his dad could easily dodge around.

Though maybe Keith had caught him on a good day, because his dad began to get comfortable in a position that looked an awful lot like he was in the mood to tell a really interesting story. “Your mama…” he started.

Keith paused, the need for understanding burning in his eyes. But he would stay on his best behavior and keep himself still. In his mind, it was the only way he would get a proper response.

Waiting with such baited breath wasn’t unlike how he usually acted when accompanying his dad on hunting trips. Sitting and waiting, as on-edge as the rabbits they were stalking that they would be spotted. On these trips, and in moments like this one, Keith sometimes felt his daddy was like a rabbit himself. But his dad and a rabbit only had a few things in common. For one, rabbits got spooked too easy. The idea of his dad getting scared for any reason at all was silly.

Hogan finally interrupted Keith’s off-rails train of thought about game animals and bravery with, “your mama's a fighter, just like you.”

Keith felt his dad press a warm, heavy hand over his head, caressing the little boy’s hair and rubbing his calloused thumb over the child’s temple. Keith smiled at his dads touch, ducking a bit when it proved to be too much. He didn’t know why he sometimes felt uncomfortable when his dad got overly affectionate, but it was a boundary that his dad had learned to respect. “Is she strong?”   


“The strongest.” Hogan grinned widely and it was enough to spur him onward, as though talking about this absent mother was the most natural thing. “Even I couldn’t best her.”

“Really?” Keith gasped, lips parting into an open smile. “But you’re the strongest dad alive!”   


Hogan rewarded him with a laugh and the abrupt weightlessness of being yanked into big, sturdy hands. He tossed Keith up into the air.   


Keith shrieked in delight as his dad caught him and held him aloft, toy plane in the little boy’s hands before it clattered to the ground.   


“Am I the strongest dad ever? In the whole wide world?” Hogan exclaimed between fits of deep laughter.   


“The strongest in the whole universe!” Keith shouted in return.   


The laughter of both father and son faded as Hogan pulled Keith back down and pressed him up against his broad chest. He cradled Keith under his chiseled jaw. “Well, your mama is even stronger.”   


Keith glanced up to see his dad looking at the sky, his lips tightened into a pained smile. Whenever the topic of Keith’s mama came up, the skies were inevitably where his dad would look. The few other children that lived out here told Keith that whenever parents were sad and thinking about lost mommies or daddies, that that person was usually in Heaven. Heaven sounded nice, but no place was all that good if it meant he would never get to visit his mama.   


“She was able to do hard things for our sake, things that I couldn’t ever dream of doing,” Hogan continued. The hurt in his smile deepened the more he spoke.   


Keith didn’t understand why his dad’s smile looked like it was hurting him. How could something that made people happy cause pain instead? What was it about all this that made it so difficult to discuss? Keith couldn’t pile any of these questions onto his dad all at once. Anything and everything could ruin his chance to learn more about his mama and he didn’t want to push his luck.   


“And just before you were born, she was able to do one of the hardest things in her entire life,” Hogan continued. His eyes still looked to the skies, and he pulled in Keith a little closer. “She loved you, Keith. I’m sure wherever she is, now, she still loves you.”   


A pang of longing hit Keith, at that moment. Sometimes he would get them out of the blue, deeply yearning for things he had never known. Whenever he closed his eyes and tried to picture what his mama could look like, sound like, he either pictured someone else’s mom or came up empty. So why he wanted for something that didn’t even exist in his life was beyond him. But his dad knew. And sometimes, Keith wondered if his dad was telling him the truth.   


But then Keith would tell himself to stop being so stupid. Not only was his dad the strongest and the toughest in all of the southwest, but he was the kindest, too. Even when his dad got grumpy and distant sometimes, he was still a kind man. He would never, never, never lie to Keith about important things. His dad was telling Keith everything he could about his mama. There was probably just some weird, grown-up reason that kept him from spilling all of the details. Another one of those things that adults said kids had to be a billion years old or something to truly understand. As he always reminded himself, Keith would wait for that day to come.   


Keith wriggled deeper into his dad’s arms and lowered his chin. “If mama loves me and you, then… does that mean she’s gonna come back?” The question slipped out of his mouth before he could fully think it through, but Keith didn’t scramble to apologize or try to take it back. This was the one question his dad never answered. Keith was at least a whole ‘nother year old, now. Maybe he was getting close enough to that day where he would finally know everything.   


Hogan pressed a kiss to the boy’s forehead, but as per usual, he was not granted an answer to this one. Instead he placed Keith down on the floorboards of the porch steps. Hogan gave Keith one more rub on the head. It lacked the warmth, tenderness and amusement from before. The touch was simpler and removed from what it was earlier.   


Keith went to follow his dad, but he was walking much faster than Keith could keep up with. “Daddy, what’s the matter?”   


Hogan stopped at the door and looked at Keith over his shoulder. He had a solemn look on his face that ridded Keith with guilt. He knew he’d been the one to cause it. “It’s getting late. You’ve got school in the morning, so I can’t have you staying up.” He gave his son another smile. “Make sure you brush them teeth this time, hear?” The door to the house softly closed behind him. Maybe the comparison to rabbits wasn’t so far-fetched, now. In between all of the pain and remorse in Hogan’s eyes, there was a glint of fear.   


Terrible as he felt for making his dad so upset, Keith knew that he could find a way to make it up to him. It just needed time and space. If he gave his daddy enough space, the man would be alright by the time Keith was fully dressed in his astronaut pajamas.   


Keith kept that thought in mind as he picked up his toy plane and went inside to get a move on his least favorite chore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout as always to my regular beta, K-Lionheart! I also want to thank stellar-parallax/Parisa again for cleaning up mistakes that I initially missed and helping to improve the symbolism in the story overall. <3


End file.
